Rhinestone Tiara
by At A Venture
Summary: Oneshot. Eric/Sookie. Sookie contemplates and re-evaluates her fantasies.


**Rhinestone Tiara**

It's something every girl dreams about, and I'm certainly not the exception. If I were still in middle school, you'd find me writing Sookie loves Eric forever (!!) in the margins of my notebooks. Sometimes I'll even catch myself doodling on cocktail napkins when the bar really slows down. It's silly and juvenile, but it's the sort of fantasy we're all supposed to entertain. I mean, how many little girls aren't dressing up their Barbies in that same standard white gown, matching them up with Ken, and parading them down between rows of their platinum-headed friends?

In the 7th grade, Tara and I decided we would have a double wedding. We picked out our future husbands from the pages of a Tiger Beat magazine, and we taped their pictures to our mirrors to always remind ourselves of their undying love. I'm pretty sure I picked Kirk Cameron. Tara and I would have matching wedding dresses, strapless gowns with big tulle skirts that swished when we walked. We had little rhinestone tiaras in our hair and cascading veils. Tara and I were best friends, but the other girls at school didn't like us so much. They thought I was weird, and that Tara was sick to hang out with me. We decided on bridesmaid dresses anyway. I would have three maids in pink, and Tara's maids would wear purple. We'd both carry roses, but different colored ones. We wanted our husbands to be able to tell us apart (as if she and I looked anything alike!).

I haven't replaced Gran walking me down the aisle, but then again, I didn't replace Kirk Cameron until Bill Compton came into my life.

I didn't entertain the idea of marrying Bill with any kind of realism. No matter how old you are, you expect your first boyfriend to be the One. That is, the One with a capital "O". You know in your heart of hearts that he loves you as much, or maybe more than you love him. You're perfect together, and you practically float on the wings of sheer bliss. You're going to be together forever and ever and nothing can put a dent in that happiness.

You know, until something does.

But I guess I always knew, even if I didn't want to admit it, that Bill Compton could never be my husband. Sure, there was a legal obstacle, but that wasn't it. Not really. Bill Compton wasn't husband material. For one thing, the man's dead. He'd never be able to spend the entire night sleeping beside me, nor could I ask him to mow the lawn on a Sunday afternoon. We wouldn't grow old together the way a husband and wife are supposed to grow old together. We would never have children. The fantasy of marriage broke down under the harsh light of reality.

It was as I began to examine how impossible marriage would be with Bill Compton that I realized how unlikely it was that I would ever be married. At least, not at the rate I was going. Given the men to whom I was attracted, marriage would never be a part of my future. I could deal with more-or-less human men for a little while, but they had flaws that I just couldn't…let go. I couldn't excuse them the way I could excuse Eric, or even Bill. I got irritated. I got annoyed. I got sick of it, and I got rid of them. I couldn't make a marriage work that way.

The whole predicament made me think of Gran and her own predilection for the otherworldly. She'd made a marriage work, though I honestly don't know how, and she'd had her affair on the side. I didn't want that. I didn't want to settle within the comforts of conformity and have my fun in secret. If that meant I couldn't marry, well, then, I guess I won't get married.

Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if I weren't…blessed with or perhaps cursed with telepathy. But the thing is, I can't picture me without it. I could have been like Arlene, screwed up and screwed over by a handful of deadbeat men with pretty smiles and not much else. I could have had two children that meant the world to me, but been useless in every other relationship category. I could have been Tara Thornton, the girl with a scary home life, and a husband as pretty as a picture but dumb as a brick. I could have been Holly or Danielle or Dawn or Maudette Pickens. I could have been Gran.

But instead I'm Sookie Stackhouse, barmaid, telepath, vampire lover.

The fantasy is still in the depths of my brain somewhere, but I've pasted Kirk Cameron's face over Bill's. Eric appears in the liners of my notebook, in the pages of my mental diary, and on cocktail napkins at the bar. But he isn't the dream husband in my wedding fantasy. I'll save that picture of my Tiger Beat 7th grade dream hunk. His bright smile and goofy hair fit in perfectly with my tulle dress and pink bridesmaids and rhinestone tiara. He looks good next to my Gran.

I'll keep Eric where he belongs—in my uncertain future.

There aren't any fantasies there; only a series of unanswered questions.


End file.
